Hi, I just published an article in Linkedin where I do just that. I used 'R', which is a nifty programming language to create a "surface", and then used Blender to add the thickness. The article has a link to a very good Youtube video, where the author uses the "solidify" modifier to add thickness to a shell.
For some reason the forum bot thinks my link is spammy. However, you can look at the product that I am talking about here, and follow the link to the Linkin article there. Kind of a lot of work, but worth looking at:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/G6C8MFZJG/hermit-crab-designer-shell-3d-0-7mm-thickness
When I used Blender to add the thickness, I made sure it was pretty thin... then after uploading to Shapeways, I let the
Shapeways' thickness fixing algorithm home in on the minimum thickness needed for the material.
Last edited: Aug 29, 2016